


Jaskier's Lament

by Brownies96



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, I actually wrote the songs, I taught myself music theory for this fic, Lots of Music, M/M, Multi, One chapter isn't in Jaskier's POV, Post 1x06 fix it, The smut is only in the last chapter so feel free to skip it, This bad boy can fit so much self-projection in him, Yes I am jumping on this bandwagon, and yes, and you know what? I'm gonna put this tag in, but other wise, historically accurate water-based lubricant, jaskier's pov, let Yennefer and Jaskier be friends, minor depictions of violence, no they aren't any good, post 1x08, slaps Jaskier on the head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:08:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23151469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brownies96/pseuds/Brownies96
Summary: Geralt was an E major chord, Jaskier always played it as an E7 because the true E chord was very difficult on the fingers and Jaskier didn’t fancy dislocating anything. The 7th added a bit of tension to it, making it all the more like Geralt, sharp and cutting, with an edge, like a sentence that never got finished (which Geralt’s sentences often remained). It was usually a transitory or transformative chord, moving between places deadly and lethal like the cut of Geralt’s sword. E, G#, B, D. But despite the tension and feeling of incomplete-ness, it was a positive chord, one that promised hope. It was fitting that it’s minor counterpart was C# minor, the key for despair and heartbreak and wailing, it’s chord echoing through Jaskier’s head every night before he went to sleep and ringing him awake with every morning.
Relationships: Geralt and Yen are having a time, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, laying the groundwork for future polyamory, polyamory but only sort of
Comments: 6
Kudos: 61





	1. Toss A Coin

Long ago, when Jaskier was still a student, he had joked that all roads let back to Oxenfurt, back then he’d been sure the rest of his life had lain in academia and other such nonsense and that the only adventures he would ever see were the made up ones he sang about. Eventually, the wanderlust had gotten to him and he’d decided to take some time off to travel. It had been a rude awakening, going from being a prodigy of the seven arts to just another travelling bard, but he liked to think he’d made it work. And it wasn’t as though he’d been alone for long, not since the early days of his travels. Perhaps this stretch of time alone with his thoughts wasn’t the longest he’d ever suffered, but he’d never tried to manage like this before, not when he felt so broken. 

He tried to distract himself the way he always had, by singing, but all of his songs reminded him too much of what had happened and that was too painful to think about. He couldn’t even bring himself to tune his lute into the key of that song, Up for G strings, E string, and A string, and down a half-step on the D strings. His fingers automatically found their way to the A# minor, F7, D♭, E♭, and back to the A# minor, which were played as A minor, E7, C, D, A minor if the lute had been in normal tuning. Jaskier hoped that if he just didn’t change the tuning, the sheer wrongness of the sound would stop him from playing that old song that had started him on that path all those years ago.

Jaskier had no delusions about himself, he knew he was annoying and that that much was putting it lightly. Everything he did was never quite good enough, he either cared too much or cared too little or wanted far too much, and no one had ever had any reservations about telling him as much. But he’d hoped that just maybe, when Geralt had said it, it had meant something different: Because Geralt thought everyone was annoying, it just wasn’t worth his time to tell them as much. But obviously Jaskier had read too much into that. Well, he thought to himself sadly, you have no one to blame but yourself.

In his more bitter moments, Jaskier considered changing the lyrics to that song, after all, ‘Bitcher’ was such a perfect rhyme, but he couldn’t make himself do it. Because he knew, if he went about turning Geralt into a monster rather than a man then Geralt would be right back to where he started and Jaskier couldn’t make himself wish that on him. Jaskier knew the truth, the Butcher of Blaviken was the least accurate of Geralt’s aliases, even the ones Jaskier had come up with himself, the White Wolf, the Protector of the People, Ravix of Fourhorne (Geralt’s silk-trader identity), Gwynbleidd, didn’t really capture who he was. They lacked the humanity that Geralt would always argue didn’t exist, but Jaskier knew better. Of course, knowing that the humanity was there and that Geralt had simply chosen not to heed it at their last encounter was perhaps more painful than believing that witchers didn’t have feelings.

Geralt was an E major chord, Jaskier always played it as an E7 because the true E chord was very difficult on the fingers and Jaskier didn’t fancy dislocating anything. The 7th added a bit of tension to it, making it all the more like Geralt, sharp and cutting, with an edge, like a sentence that never got finished (which Geralt’s sentences often remained). It was usually a transitory or transformative chord, moving between places deadly and lethal like the cut of Geralt’s sword. E, G#, B, D. But despite the tension and feeling of incomplete-ness, it was a positive chord, one that promised hope. It was fitting that it’s minor counterpart was C# minor, the key for despair and heartbreak and wailing, it’s chord echoing through Jaskier’s head every night before he went to sleep and ringing him awake with every morning.

Regardless, as he walked slowly through Velen, trying to quell the C# feeling that rose in his chest every time he heard the lone gait of a horse with a single rider, Jaskier tried to figure out what he was going to do. He’d thought he’d known what he wanted, he had known, actually, but some things were never meant to come to pass, like the tragic C minor ballads of love lost. Jaskier had never written one himself, finding them to be too filled with optimistic C minor longing when things were clearly C# minor hopeless.

He stopped at an Inn in Mulbrydale, a decently-sized township and as soon as he was holding his lute the request had begun. Every time someone asked him to play that particular song it was as if they were twisting a dagger in his gut. He left without eating, resigning himself to sleeping on the hard ground. Still he had years of practice at that, even if he didn’t want to think about where that practice had come from.

He tried to sleep on the ground, his bedroll seemed determined to torture him, but Jaskier closed his eyes stubborly and tried to picture what his life would look like back at Oxenfurt. The request from the Inn battered him as he did. Jaskier realised there was no future for him there. He’d staked his fame and skill on  _ him _ and if he went back to Oxenfurt he would never escape students asking him to tell stories of his past.

Accepting that he wasn’t going to get any sleep after that revelation, Jaskier packed up his bag and began to walk South instead of East. He crossed the Pontar River into Temeria with nowhere in particular to go. As he walked, he cursed his stupid, bleeding heart, always enamoured with something or another, he fell in love more regularly than other people fell over. And for what? He’d always thought it helped him, made his songs more genuine than the C minor drivel Valdo Marx came up with. But if this was the cost then maybe it wasn’t worth it. Maybe he’d be better off without a heart at all.

It was dawn by the time Jaskier saw another town. He steeled himself for the inevitable song requests, plucking out a D minor arpeggio as he walked. It was a D minor sort of mood, trudging along in melancholy, feeling trapped in a cage of his own making. Yes, D minor fit his mood perfectly. 

The town announced itself to be Lindenvale by way of a swinging sign above the tavern, rusted from age. Even in his miserable state, Jaskier noticed that the bar had no atmosphere whatsoever, it was a very D minor place, everyone going about what they had to do with no real joy to it. If the people’s clothing was anything to go by, it looked like the townspeople were barely scraping enough coin together to get by, Jaskier guessed that his purse could see him there for several years before he had to go anywhere in search of more, not because he had lots of coin, but because the derelict state of everything drove the value down. 

He stopped his playing just long enough to make a point of jostling his coin purse. That caught the attention of the woman at the bar.

“What’ll it be?” she asked, her eyes never leaving the coin purse.

“A room and some mead,” Jaskier replied.

Jaskier made himself at home on the tavern, his lute and his few other worldly possessions lived in his room above the bar. Once rumor had made her rounds and the people of Lindenvale had heard there was a generous young man with plenty of coin staying in the township he hadn’t wanted for anything. Well, nothing they could give him anyway.

He turned his mind to making something out of his pain. After all, the point of art was to make something beautiful out of something terrible, wasn’t it? Perhaps some part of him just hoped that if he could push the feelings that swirled inside him out of his body and into song, that they would go away and leave him be. 


	2. Blame Destiny

Yennefer wished, not for the first time, that magical abilities meant something other than channeling chaos. It would be wonderful, she thought, if it meant anything other than turning her life into a swirling mess of pig shit. But that wasn’t what magic was. Magic was desperately trying to order and make sense of the mess around you. It was breaking, repairing, and rebreaking the same wounds until they were healed correctly. It was never dying but barely living.

The chaos had overpowered her at Sodden Hill. She had been little more than a conduit, like the eels at Aretuza, pushing magic through herself in the vain hope that it might make a difference. Tissaia assured her it had. But channeling magic like that was not without it’s price, and Yennefer had paid hers most foolishly. Tissaia assured her that her eyesight would return in time, and that everything she could do to heal them was being done. But Yennefer had no way of knowing if that much was true: She had always known only to trust what she could see with her own eyes, and here she was relying on Tissaia. Yet another choice Life was taking away from her.

Trusting Tissaia was difficult enough in its own right. It had taken certain death for Yen to even admit to herself that Tissaia had saved her from being a nobody for the rest of her life, even more powerless against the sea of chaos. But to admit that Tissaia cared for her and worse still, that she cared for Tissaia, was something Yennefer was not yet prepared to deal with.

But the isolation from the world gave her time to think. She knew what she wanted, and that was to control as much of her own life as she could, to be the only person who could decide her Path and how she would walk it. And for that to be possible, she would have to undo the ties that were not of her own choosing. 

She could still hear the words Borch had spoken “the sorceress will never regain her womb”. A dragon would know, but she often wished he’d never told her, so she could keep chasing the right to make that decision for herself, only for it to be fruitless. Hmm. Maybe not. 

She’d asked Tissaia about Destiny, bonds, and Djinns, picking the rectoress’ brains for some way forward, some way she could seize the reigns of her life, and she had come up with a plan. It wasn’t a good plan by any stretch of the imagination, but it was something to do other than sit around and hope that her eyesight returned. 

She waited until she could hear the sound of Tissaia’s heavy breathing before getting up as silently as she was able. She could sort of make out the shapes of things, but without light for colour and with an inability to pick out detail, that was all she had. It was enough. She could sense her bag, still filled with enough magical items that without any of her earthly senses she would have known exactly where it was, she picked it up and was already edging the door open when she felt a pang of guilt. Leaving Tissaia like this after all she had done for her felt . . . wrong somehow. But Yen knew that if she waited until morning Tissaia would try and stop her from leaving and she couldn’t have that.

By scent she picked a few flowers from where they grew on the windowsill. True, Tissaia had been growing them for their magical properties, but their poetic meanings still worked nonetheless. Azalea, to ask the receiver to take care of themselves, cyclamen, for goodbye, the darkest hyacinth that grew and Yen could only hope was purple for apology, and finally an iris, for your companionship. 

And with that she set out in search of Geralt of Rivia. 

Perhaps the one good thing that came of their stupid magical bond was that no matter where Yen went, she knew she would find him. She could see the day night cycle, and the way the path would be illuminated in blues, browns, and greens, only to be swallowed by a blanket of inky blackness come nightfall, but she could not have said with any certainty how long her journey was. It was a mixture between portalling and walking which didn’t help her keep any sort of sense of time or direction. But if Destiny was going to be such a bitch about keeping her and Geralt together, then it could damn well make itself useful. 

To Yennefer’s surprise, she hears Geralt’s low voice coming not from a campsite by the side of a road, but a small tent like thing. Yes, she can feel magic coming off it, not unlike her own travelling tent. This magic screams Triss and Yen finds herself pushing down a sob when she thinks of the fate her friend suffered back at Sodden Hill. But perhaps most surprisingly of all, is the voice that accompanies Geralt’s, a small voice, like that of a child. Ah, she realised, he’s claimed his child of surprise. She continued to listen out, waiting for a third voice to join them, the bard that always followed Geralt like a lost puppy, but it never arrived. Jaskier wasn’t there, not that Yen would ever admit to remembering his name immediately, it was so much more fun to have him look at her with such insult.

Yennefer could hear her own heartbeat in her ears as she approached. She had made this plan with the goal of dragging Geralt into a very dangerous situation that could potentially endanger him. Let alone a human child. But somehow, the remains of her plan mingled with burning curiosity and she stopped just outside the tent flap.

“Geralt?” she said, willing a touch of disdain into her tone, just so he would know where he still stood. But she couldn’t deny that there were nerves there as well, the sooner she was rid of these stupid feelings the better.

“Yenna,” he replied, holding the tent flap open for her. She had definitely stood too close, there were perhaps inches between them and Yen found herself feeling very grateful that there was a child in there, making her reel in her self control. 

She walked in the way she always did, her chin up, shoulders back, with even, deliberate steps. Carefully training her eyes on the child surprise, even though she couldn’t see much more than a blob of fair hair and blue smock. But she could feel the energy around the child, there was Geralt’s magic, of course, magical blood, and the faint scent of a druid, all of which could only add up to one person.

“That’s-”

“Ciri,” Geralt cut off Yennefer’s ‘the princess of Cintra’.

“I see,” Yen said faintly. This was quite possibly the biggest, most chaotic mess she’d ever seen, and she was a conduit of chaos. Her plan collapsed around her, dissolving back into the chaos from whence it came.

She couldn’t ask Geralt to come with her. He might have been responsible for the mess she was in, but she was more than used to cleaning up other people’s messes from her time at the Court of Aedirn. Ciri had so much power swirling around her and within her, the kind of power that could stop this nonsense war Fringilla had started. She needed to be protected. And even if she wasn’t some special child, she was still a child, and if Yennefer could do anything to make sure her childhood was at least less miserable then Yen’s own, then she would.

“So,” Yennefer said, ignoring Geralt and looking (as much as she could) directly at Ciri. “How much do you know about magic?”

“Magic?” Ciri’s voice was full of wonder.

“Yen,” Geralt warned.

“She has the ability, the sooner she learns to control it the better,” Yen snapped back, sounding an awful lot like Tissaia.

“Yen, what happened to you?” Geralt tried again.

Yennefer didn’t bother turning around, it wasn’t as if she would be able to make out his expression, at best she’d manage to make out the golden shade of his eyes. “I fought at Sodden Hill,” she said shortly, “I was blinded and my sight is still returning.” She dared Destiny to try and keep it from her, her tone offering no argument.

“Yennefer,” Geralt said again, but his tone was gentler this time. Yennefer ignored him.

“In this bag,” she handed it to Ciri, “You will find a flower and a stone, take them out and place them side by side.”

She could feel Geralt watching her closely as she taught Ciri how to lift the rock. She demonstrated first, not wanting Ciri’s first experience with controlled magic to look like Fringilla’s. She could feel Geralt’s gaze trained on her as she helped Ciri lift the rock. It was a slow process, but Yennefer did her best to be kind, and not in a subtle way as Tissaia had been.

It wasn’t until after Ciri had gone to sleep that she spoke to Geralt again. They were seated opposite one another at a small wooden table, with Yen deftly mixing the potions that were healing her even without sight to guide her. 

“You claimed your child of surprise?” She said, giving him an opening.

“After Cintra fell.” Geralt replied. “I had to.” And he did, she could see that much, all that time spent fighting destiny only for it to creep up on him via his sense of duty anyway. 

“She’s a good kid,” Yen observed, “smart.”

Geralt exhaled and nodded, leaving their conversation to lapse into silence. Yennefer had no quarrel with silence, but she did have quarrel with the many words that were going unspoken around them. She wasn’t about to let Geralt avoid them. She decided to start easy. 

“Where’s your bard?” she asked. And there was a flash of something, she could feel it. Something strong. She searched for his eyes, faint blurs of gold and tried again. “Where is Jaskier?”

And she could feel his guilt, could hear Geralt’s cold words “If life could give me one blessing it would be to take you off my hands!” Geralt wasn’t usually this easy to read, but this memory seemed exempt from his usual defences. 

“Wow.” She said, “You fucked up.”

Geralt didn’t respond, she heard him shift in his seat, probably to look away from her so she couldn’t read anything more from him. She stood up from the table. Knowing she wasn’t going to get anything more out of him.

“I’ll stay for a bit,” she told him, “make sure Ciri gets her abilities under some sort of control.”

Geralt didn’t respond, nor did he make any noise as she found a soft spot of the floor to rest, the carpet still contained traces of Triss’ magic, making Yen’s eyes water slightly.

“Oxenfurt,” Geralt said softly, as if he hoped she wouldn’t hear him, “he’d be back to being a fancy prodigy at Oxenfurt.”

Oxenfurt indeed. Yennefer had been sure she’d be able to guilt Geralt into coming with her to collect the ingredients she needed to break the Djinn’s spell, but if Jaskier was out there, and probably very willing to do something Geralt wouldn’t want him to do, then perhaps she had another option. True, the bard wasn’t as useful as a witcher, but she really only needed eyes, everything else she could handle herself.

Still, all of that was a problem for the weeks to come. Yennefer wasn’t about to leave Ciri where she could blow a rift into chaos for anyone - especially Fringilla - to see. She had the means to make a few protective charms. Nothing like Geralt’s medallion, but a close enough substitute that Ciri would be safe from prying magic. But with every moment Ciri was asleep, or learning sword fighting with Geralt, or eating, Yennefer reformed her plan anew, ready to find Jaskier as soon as she could leave. It was lucky that Geralt still had a few of Jaskier’s old belongings with him. How he could be so blind to his own sentimentality Yennefer had no idea, but it meant that she could use them to portal directly to him. That much was a relief, Oxenfurt was a big city, and Yennefer didn’t like her odds of being able to navigate it without sight or the ability to read a map.


	3. Her Sweet Kiss

G, E, B minor, A. The first truly melancholy chord progression he’d written since meeting Geralt. True, none of the chords themselves held particularly negative connotations, but the wistfulness of the G, next to the stark reality of the E (as always played as an E7), cascading into the B minor of giving up and the A of acceptance. It was a bittersweet melody that Jaskier had written so long ago after they had encountered the Djinn. It was the melody that rang in his ears when he saw the tender way Geralt would look at Yennefer as if he would promise her the world. The words had come later, not even beginning to fall together until he had sat alone at the campsite, trying not to think too hard about Geralt and Yennefer in the tent not a dozen yards away. And then later, as he had walked down the mountain alone.

He could still remember running some of the first verse by Geralt, when he’d first penned it down, “It steals all my reason, commits every treason, of logic with naught but a look.”

“Bullshit.” Geralt had said from Roach’s back. They had been walking between towns same as always, with Jaskier walking and composing while Geralt rode Roach with their packs.

“That love turns people into fools?” Jaskier asked, already arming himself with thousands of examples, carefully editing out several of his own, such as walking up to a scary man in a dark tavern just because he was hot.

“That you had any reason to begin with,” Geralt replied.

Jaskier had opened his mouth to deliver what surely would have been a truly scathing retort, but he’d seen Geralt’s lips turn up just a slither and that had completely distracted him.

“Who knew,” he’d said, after far too long a pause, “Witcher’s have a sense of humour. Next you’ll be telling me that Roach is just a well-disguised housecat.”

“The story is this, she’ll destroy with her sweet kiss,” he sang, letting the word kiss cascade out throughout the tavern, the note falling not unlike his own hopes. He supposed it was something of a blessing, having a way to turn his feelings into something he could express in words and sounds, unlike a certain someone that he was pointedly not thinking about. He blinked the last few tears out of his eyes and bowed to his audience. His throat felt too tight for another song just yet. He made his way down to the bar for some mead, hoping it would ease his voice enough that he could keep going. He doubted that it would work but it was worth a shot.

“Was that about me?” It was as if singing about her had summoned her. Gods above this was the last thing he needed.

“What makes you think I’d write a song about you?” He shot back. Technically.it was about her and Geralt, she was only half of the equation.

“The fact that you just sang it.”

Jaskier wasn’t sure how much Yennefer could read him, but clearly it was enough. He made long strides towards the door when she grabbed his arm. 

“Stay,” she said, and there was a simplicity in her tone that kept it just shy of an order. He wished it had been an order, then he could have taken great delight in telling her to fuck off. But he didn’t. 

“What are you doing here Yennefer?” He sat down with a sigh. 

She took a moment to study him, giving Jaskier the unusual feeling that he was being examined both on the inside and out. “I need to get something,” she said, “and I need someone to help me.”

“What? Why?” Jaskier wanted to ask thousands of questions, but he decided it was fair to start with the two simplest.

Yennefer made a face like she was chewing on something unpleasant. “I-”

While she hesitated, Jaskier took time to look at her properly. Yes, she was beautiful and such, but he already knew that. What was curious was that she seemed to lack some of her trademark confidence, as if her façade had turned brittle. Her aggressively violet eyes weren’t quite meeting his. Testing something, he raised his arm slowly to her side. It was the sort of gesture she would notice, but only with her eyes. He raised his hand until it was right beside her ear and snapped his fingers. She jumped in shock.

“What the fuck was that?”

“You can’t see,” he breathed.

“And you can’t bend chaos to your will,” she snapped back.

“We all have our weaknesses,” Jaskier said fairly.

“This is only temporary,” she said and Jaskier wasn’t sure which of them she was trying to convince. 

“Why me?” He asked, which was perhaps the most burning question of all. Why come fetch the Witcher’s kicked puppy. Had she been looking for Geralt and been disappointed to find him instead? That was definitely within the realm of possibility.

She shrugged, clearly a gesture she wasn’t familiar with. “I was going to ask Geralt but-”

Jaskier flinched at the mention of the name and Yennefer froze.

“Sweet Melitele!” She swore, doubling over as if she’d been punched.

Jaskier looked at her with concern. Yennefer was normally a perfect A major scale, declarative and loving, or perhaps that was only how she was when he saw her with Geralt. But she was never less than perfect, so seeing her in pain and blind was so unusual Jaskier couldn’t make any sense of it logically or musically. 

“Gods, Jaskier, how are you still alive?” she asked in wonder.

That was a little rude. “I took perfectly good care of myself before he decided to ride his way in and out of my life.” Jaskier said, and there was no doubting who was meant by the ‘he’.

Yennefer smirked at that but there was a sadness to it, a bass note that countered the melody. “I can’t see you but I can feel you,” she explained, “you reach out with your emotions and I can feel the chaos coming from them.”

“You . . . Know what I’m feeling?” Jaskier said slowly, and his dislike of her suddenly rose, if she had known all this time and still gone after Geralt then she had been deliberately hurting him. No, none of this was her fault, he told himself sternly, he had been setting himself up for heartbreak the moment he’d decided to follow Geralt. He just wished he’d had more time before the heartbreak.

“I don’t just know it. I can feel it,” she said, sucking in another deep breath. 

“Sorry,” he said, not feeling particularly sorry at all.

“I’m trying,” she said, sitting up straighter and steadying herself, “to break the Djinn’s curse. Untie our destinies.”

“Yours and . . .”

“His,” Yen finished for him and Jaskier realised she wasn’t saying his name for his sake, or hew own, since she would feel the suckerpunch to the gut as keenly as he did. But if she was trying to break it then . . . Several years ago Jaskier would have leapt at the opportunity for this, but now he wasn’t so sure. Breaking their bond would hurt Geralt, and Jaskier couldn’t decide if that was a pro or a con.

He looked at Yennefer, blinded and battered, still fighting for her freedom from destiny. Even if he didn’t like her, he had to respect her. And he knew she would do her best not to bring up any painful memories, if only to save herself the discomfort of reliving them alongside him. That made her self-serving but also meant she would be kinder to him than any company he’d had in a long time.

“What do we need to do?” he asked her.

They travelled to Lurtch by portal, which Jaskier had to admit, was a lot more comfortable than walking the entire way, even if it did make him feel a bit sick. Yennefer had explained their goal well enough, they needed a specific type of Optima Mater Ore, one that could be keyed to negate the effects of the Djinn’s magic while leaving her own unaffected. It was a tricky balancing act, and it required them finding the exact piece they were looking for. That had brought them to the mines just outside Lurch.

“You know,” Yennefer said conversationally, “I was supposed to find you in Oxenfurt.”

Jaskier looked over at her, surprised. “I’ve done guest lectures there a few times but I didn’t really feel like going back.”

“Why not? You’ve certainly seen more of the world than most Oxenfurt graduates.”

“What would I tell them? That in order to make sense of all the pain in the world there must be art, and where art fails we can do nothing but suffer?” He saw Yennefer’s incredulous expression. “What?”

“You make it sound like magic,” Yennefer said, stopping in her tracks.

“And you think to tell me that it isn’t?” He challenged. He was going to say more but Yennefer grabbed him with a speed he really hadn’t thought she was capable of. 

“There’s a camp at the mine entrance,” she said.

“I thought you said no one uses this mine anymore,” Jaskier said.

“I said that the Evves family no longer runs it, that doesn’t mean people aren’t mining it.” Yennefer hissed. 

“Of course you’d make this seem easy until it was too late,” Jaskier hissed back. He was so tired of being the fool people trod on to advance their own causes. But there was no turning back now, not unless he fancied walking back to Lindenvale and explaining where he’d been to the owner of the tavern. Still, he told himself this was the last time he let himself get involved with these magical schemes that always seemed to leave him worse for wear. He willed this to be a simple quest in C major, happy and triumphant, rather than a B major battle where everything was on the line.

But despite the rather serious risks Jaskier could see, Yennefer walked on, dragging him by his arm right past the people camped at the mouth of the cave. Jaskier felt a surge of pity for them, imagining having to work, only to have to illegally mine Optima Mater in your time off because work alone wasn’t enough to put bread on the table. Two men spoke to each other with tired voices and shadows beneath their eyes, but paid no heed to him or Yen, even when they walked right in front of their faces. Jaskier squashed down the pang of loss he felt as he thought of himself and Geralt camping in a similar way. No point dwelling on the past.

“Did you do something to them?” he asked her.

“No, I did something to us. They can’t see or hear anything we do.” She didn’t even turn around to answer him, marching them both into the cave and only letting go of Jaskier when they’d turned a dark corner.

“Right, erm, Yennefer, You brought me here to be your eyes didn’t you? Well I can’t actually see in the dark.”

Yennefer gave a long suffering sigh and summoned a ball of flames into her hand. “Better?” she asked.

“Considerably.” He examined the walls. Mostly ordinary rock, igneous if he could remember his studies correctly, but there were veins that looked like perfect rainbows shooting through the cave, flickering in the firelight. It was as if they were cheerfully winking at him.

“Is there a specific piece you want?” He asked her.

Yennefer pursed her lips. “The older pieces will reflect further down the colour spectrum.”

“So a piece that looks particularly blue or purple?” He offered, perhaps she was trying to sound smart but intellectualism was something that Jaskier hadn’t been able to be afraid of since graduating Oxenfurt and realising what bullshit it was.

Yennefer made a noise of assent and Jaskier began to trail his fingers along a vein with a greenish hue, hoping to follow it to blue. It led them down a few more twists and turns, and Jaskier was beginning to wonder if Yennefer was feeling a bit impatient, based on the way she shuffled her feet whenever they stood still.

“Please don’t mistake this for genuine care but, are you alright?” he asked. 

Yennefer snorted with amusement. “Optima mater weakens magical links, that’s why I need it for the potion, but with all this-” she gestured around the cavern, “I can’t sense where you are, I just have to listen.”

“Well that’d be a first, someone actually listening to me,” he said, slipping into self-deprecation more quickly than he’d meant to.

“Do you really believe that?” she asked, “I’d check but . . .” she made another gesture at the Optima Mater.

“Here,” Jaskier said, ignoring her question. It wasn’t that he didn’t think people listened to him, he knew they did because they sang his songs, but people liked the edited, polished version of what he had to say, not the initial version of his thoughts. And when he wasn’t trying to perform or entertain, then most people acted like he was invisible.

He pulled out his dagger and chipped away at a blue section. It wasn’t a graceful procedure by any means, but the stone was brittle enough that it chipped easily with a bit of pressure. Jaskier quickly realised how much faster the process would be if he just hit the vein with the hilt of his dagger. He was right, after the first hit, twenty-odd pieces of Optima Mater rained onto the floor. He picked up a clump which he handed to Yennefer before filling his own hands with what remained.

“Is this enough?” he asked her.

“Hopefully,” she said.

“I have to be honest, that was not the positive declaration I was hoping for,” he told her.

She laughed, “I’d tell you to get used to disappointment, but if that hasn’t happened by now I doubt it ever will.”

OK that stung a bit, but Jaskier was mostly just happy not to have her asking him any more prying questions. He supposed she was probably just enjoying ribbing him before she was no longer surrounded by Optima Mater and had to experience his emotions again. If only the rock was just as effective on him.

Yen put out her light as they neared the mouth of the cave and strode out once again into the daylight. Jaskier made to follow her but was quickly stopped by a hand on his chest.

“What have you got there, boy?” The man before him said, threat crescendo-ing in his voice. This wasn’t good.

“Trying to rob us are ya?” Said another voice coming from behind the man. “Trying to get some of the stones before we noticed ya?” The voice continued. “Think you can just wander on in.”

Any pity he might have felt for these men dissipated as the other one drew up behind him and held a knife to his throat. Words died in Jaskier’s throat as he realised these men were too desperate to allow themselves to be convinced into letting him go. He pushed past that fear, even if he was going to die, he wasn’t going to lie down and accept it. He’d suffered far too much for a pair of desperate fools to be the thing that got to kill him.

“Gentlemen,” he began, “be reasonable-” but the sentence was cut off by the knife digging into his throat. He could feel a trickle of blood trailing down his neck and he begged Melitele to make sure his voice survived this encounter. A leg injury or something was fine, but not something that would cut him off from his music.

As if his prayers were being answered the two men froze suddenly, going rigid. And then they began to change. Their skin turned hard and cracked like the rock inside the cave. Jaskier stepped out of the ominous stony embrace to see Yennefer.

“I thought you’d gone,” he told her.

“You have most of the stones, and I’d never hear the end of it if I let you die” she said, but her tone was a little too stony, like a vibrato extended past its usual point.

“Gods Yen, people might start thinking you like me,” he said, making a joke.

“Well we can’t have that,” she laughed along and Jaskier realised she was humoring him. Perhaps it was the fact that to see him she had to feel his emotions, and that had made her empathise, or perhaps it was just because he wasn’t glaring at her as she and Geralt made lovestruck glances at each other, but they seemed to have reached some kind of truce. Their insults were more like banter than actual daggers.

“I have to say, I like your sculpture,” he gestured to the stone men. “I think you should call it ‘The Tragedy of Two Men Who Stood Between a Witch and Her Goal’ nice and foreboding.”

She scoffed a laugh once more. “By all means, I give the naming rights to you,” she said over the sound of her summoning a portal back to Lindenvale.

“This is your stop, I believe,” she said as they were transported back to the tavern. “Are you going to write a song about this?” 

“Maybe,” he said, though he hadn’t been planning to.

“You should,” she said, “It would piss him off to no end.” Jaskier smirked with her at that.

“Well then, I guess I have to,” he said, and somehow Yennefer bringing Geralt up didn’t cause that aggressive bout of melancholy that thinking about him usually did. Maybe it was because they were both angry at him, both emotional messes over a man who could barely spare a syllable even on his best days.

“Here,” she said, handing him a small compact mirror.

“No thanks, I already know how stunningly handsome I am,” he replied flippantly.

“It’s a communication mirror,” she explained. “I owe you one for this. Call me if you need anything. I dislike having debts owed.”

Realising that she was essentially handing him a magical lifeline, Jaskier took the mirror with renewed interest.

“Thanks,” he said, but she was already gone. Portalled off to do whatever it was she did with her spare time. Her own words echoed back to him “I’d never hear the end of it if I let you die.” She can’t have meant what he thought she did. Pushing his confusion aside, he made his way to the stage, after all he had a ballad to write, and he always did better with an audience.


	4. Behind Ev'ry Wall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a link if you want to listen to Behind Ev'ry Wall (Sorry for the low quality)
> 
> https://youtu.be/sTwRENUAdtE

Sure the mirror was supposed to be for emergencies only, or at least something worth dragging Yen away from her potion. But Jaskier had made the decision that very night to leave the compact mirror open as he’d played his new song, ‘Behind Ev’ry Wall’ and Yennefer must have liked it, because he’d seen her appear in it the following night, and several of the ones that followed. The song was written in her A major scale, usually reserved for love and satisfaction, but Jaskier had never seen it that way. It was the key of getting what you wanted and keeping it, the journey towards the satisfaction that it promised. It was the perfect key for Yennefer A fact he’d known ever since he’d written it in as the final chord in the main progression of ‘Her Sweet Kiss’. 

Yen didn’t appear in the mirror every night for the next few months, and when she did, her background was ever changing, suggesting to Jaskier that she was still hunting down the rest of the ingredients he needed. Jaskier’s area of expertise lay better in the seven Liberal Arts than in anything to do with magic, but he did have a basic understanding of what went with what. He knew that there was some kind of relationship between Optima Mater and Dimeritium, a metal with the ability to negate magic and it’s effects, and that Yen was trying to make something that would negate the effects of the Djinn’s curse without stripping her of her own abilities. He could hazard a guess as to what other ingredients she was fetching, though he was sure he’d miss one or two, or several.

Either regardless or or perhaps because of his rather scant knowledge of magic, he didn’t expect to be any further assistance to Yennefer. And maybe that was for the best, even if they had never gotten along before but somehow did now, she was still a tie to his old life, and he knew that he needed to move on with it. He just had to focus on how.

Personally, he thought he was doing rather well, taking walks down to the Pontar River in the morning, it wasn’t the coast really, not when he could almost see Crow’s Perch across the bay in the distance, but it was a chance to be by the water and that was more than good enough. He could walk now, without his head pricking up in pathetic hope every time he heard the sound of a lone horse and it’s rider. He could think about the day ahead and not be daunted by loneliness and pangs of heartache that had plagued him until so recently. His battered heart may never fully heal, but it was recovering slowly. 

Jaskier walked the dirt path back to Lindenvale, his notebook full of lyrics yet to be put to music, and his heart just a little bit lighter than it had been the day before. He was, not content, but comfortable, and he walked through the small town, always careful to give everyone a pleasant smile as he wondered by (you never knew when you might be in need of the kindness of a blacksmith or a baker) before returning to Mrs Wiśnia and her tavern.

At least, that's where he would have gone, were it not for the strange man with a cart setting up his travelling shop in the street outside. This was the first stranger to arrive in Lindenvale (aside from Yennefer who had only been there for a matter of minutes, and therefore didn’t really count) aside from himself and Jaskier couldn’t help but take a look at the wares he was selling: He would know the red bottles of alcohest anywhere after the amount of times Geralt had sent him to get some to replenish his potions. Jaskier examined the man with the eye of someone who had seen his fair share of creatures, but the man was unremarkably human. Jaskier was almost ready to finish his gawking and leave when he spotted a vial, glowing faintly green even in the daylight. Fifth essence. Notoriously difficult to create from it’s base form, hydragenum, and essential for truly complex magic. Jaskier raced into the tavern and up the stairs to his room to grab the mirror.

“Yen!” He called, uncertain as to whether it would work. They had only spoken through it a few times, and each of those moments had come after Jaskier had spotted her within the mirror already. Her eyesight had recovered enough that she could make out any rude hand gestures Jaskier threw her way, which was an unfortunate development, as he’d rather enjoyed having perfectly civil conversations with her all while miming obscene curses at her. But alas.

“What’s wrong?” Yennefer’s face quickly flickered into view.

“Oh, erm nothing’s wrong I just-” Jaskier wasn’t really sure where to go from here, but judging by her impatient expression, he knew it was better to messily state his intent now, rather than try to craft an eloquent explanation. “Do you need fifth essence for your potion?”

Her expression turned from impatient to puzzled. “Yes, why?”

“There’s a salesman here, selling it, in Lindenvale, it’s just outside.” Jaskier told her, surprising himself with the excitement in his voice. Was he really so desperate to be useful? Gods that was sad.

“Give me a moment,” She said flickering from view. Jaskier was just about to try and call her again when the air went still with the sudden tang of magic and a portal appeared.

“Where is it?” Yennefer asked imperiously, but there was a conspiratorial smile tugging at her lips. Jaskier found himself wondering if they would have been friends had their paths met differently. Perhaps not, she was as insufferably poised as ever, but it was food for thought.

Jaskier made a great show of opening the door for her and pretended to dust the first step. Yennefer smirked at this but held her head up high as she followed him back out into the street.

“Hello,” the man greeted them both with a smile that was just a little too weary to be natural.

“Hello,” Yennefer said back, flashing the man such a winning smile that Jaskier was surprised that the man didn’t just lean forward and start worshipping the ground where she stood. He doubted anyone as intimidatingly beautiful as Yennefer had ever bothered to give him the time of day before.

“How much for that?” Yennefer said curtly, back to her normal self now that the man was nice and enthralled.

“That one? One hundred and thirty orens.” Apparently Yennefer wasn’t as charming as she thought she was, Jaskier watched her face cloud with either disappointment or anger. She was a difficult woman to read.

“Are you certain?” Jaskier asked the man, trying to diffuse the tension, “I’m fairly certain the usual asking price is 60 oren.”

“Perhaps,” the man said, his jaw set in stubborn determination, “but these are hard times, I’m afraid.” Oh that was how it was going to be, was it? Jaskier was already planning a song about the evils of stingy merchants and the perils that would befall them. He met Yen’s eyes for a silent conversation. Maybe, just maybe, they could afford it, if Jaskier was willing to go without a roof over his head for a few months, and if he played every day until his fingers bled, and Yen set up a magical cure-all business. But none of that appealed to either of them. And it was such a blatant rip-off. 

Jaskier gave the merchant his haughtiest heir-to-a-viscounty glare and went back to looking at the other wares, hoping that their disinterest would lower the price. True, he’d actually sucked at being haughty the entire time it had been requested of him, but he could manage a small burst of it every now and again. His great-uncle would be proud at least, though Jaskier hadn’t been back to Lettenhove in quite some time. His family had made it clear that they would be cutting him off if he didn’t return for his duties after university. He had stopped by to say hello and whatnot, and for his grandmother’s (the viscount’s sister’s) funeral, but he’d never come crawling back to them desperate for money and willing to settle down. Frankly, Jaskier thought his great uncle couldn’t have chosen a worse heir if he’d tried.

Still mulling over the many ways he was a disappointment to every life that touched his own, jaskier was brought up short by the sight of a long, leathery egg, in an unmistakable bone-white with deep blue speckling. Jaskier had seen these before too, it was the egg of a pale widow.

“Where did you get this?” he asked, ignoring the dirty look Yennefer shot him for breaking their disinterested browsing ruse.

“Took it myself, straight from the nest, that is,” the man said proudly. Fuck. This was the worst way any of this could possibly go.

“Have you considered putting it back?” Jaskir asked, nervously checking the horizon.

“Why would I do that?” the man said, but his face had paled, and Jaskier got the feeling that he knew exactly why he should be returning it.

“Because the mother is going to come looking for it,” Jaskier snapped, they didn’t have time for games, if a pale widow was coming for them. 

Yennefer’s eyes darted sharply up as she appraised Jaskier. “I have tallow and ranogrin,” she said, flinging her bag at Jaskier. She must have sensed it approaching, otherwise she’d never had handed her bg of valuable ingredients to him, he watched as she placed a hand on the ground, wilting a bust nearby and she pulled at chaos.

“Wait,” Jaskier said, a very stupid idea striking him. “Why should we protect him? He’s trying to rip us off. The monster’s only going to attack him.” He gave Yennefer a meaningful glance, hoping she’d figure it out. She stopped chanting and turned to look smugly at the merchant.

“Well, Konrad,” she said, turning her terrifying magical gaze on the merchant, “how much is your life worth to you?” Oh she was good at this, just the right amount of ethereal and intimidating. Jaskier quickly mixed the tallow and the herb for when the obvious answer came.

And what perfect timing, the ground shook slightly before a white antennae erupted from it, signalling that the pale widow had arrived.

“By all means, take your time,” Jaskier said, rather enjoying the look on Konrad’s face.

“Fine!” He shouted, “You can take it just stop that THING!”

Jaskier rubbed the potion onto his dagger. It wasn’t a particularly useful dagger, more pretty than anything else, but it had a good enough weight to it that Jaskier could throw it with some accuracy.

He threw it and it bounced off a belly scoot. How typical. He rolled his eyes and retrieved it as soon as Konrad stepped behind Yennefer, distracting it. He edged silently around it’s back until he was sure it wouldn’t be able to turn around faster than he could run and plunged the dagger into it.

Insectoid Oil wouldn’t kill it, but it would weaken it enough that Yennefer could do a killing blow as soon as the poison was in it’s system. He grabbed his dagger back and dived back behind Yennefer’s shield.

“Got it,” he told her.

“Good,” she said, lowering the shield in a way that made Jaskir nervous, even though he knew she needed all her concentration to attack the creature. She said something in Elder that Jaskier couldn’t quite make out because he was too busy dodging the acid spit the creature had sent hurling their way and the pale widow went flying backwards. Yennefer didn’t let up, not letting it retreat back underground, delivering blow after blow after blow until it lay dead on the ground.

Jaskier realised he was closer to Konrad’s cart than Konrad was and grabbed the Fifth Essence before Konrad could try and stop them.

“You’re welcome,” he said before running over to check on Yennefer.

The bushes all around them had shriveled and died and Yennefer was breathing heavily. He helped her to her feet.

“C’mon,” he said, “let’s get you away from the smell,” he wrinkled his nose at the noxious stench of the acid that was probably going to linger in the ground until the next rainfall.

“It’s not that bad,” Yennefer said faintly, “You should smell the farm I grew up on.” Jaskier was sure Yennefer wouldn’t be this open with him if she wasn’t dramatically exhausted, but he knew he had to keep her talking, he wasn’t sure he had the skills to revive her if she passed out.

“You grew up on a farm?” He prompted.

“A pig farm, in Vengerberg. My step-father sold me to Aretuza for four marks, the bastard.” Jaskier wasn’t sure how Aedernian marks translated into orens, but four was a small amount of coin wherever you went.

He helped her up the tavern stairs and lay her on his bed, he was tempted to make a joke but she beat him to it.

“Bet you’d rather have anyone else in your bed,” she said.

“I dunno, I’m not exactly Konrad’s biggest fan at the moment,” he joked back.

“Everything’s gone all blurry again,” she complained, and Jaskier remembered that she’d lost her sight from overuse of magic, and what she’d just done probably didn’t help.

“Here,” he said, pressing a flagon of water into her hands. She took a small sip.

“Distract me,” she ordered, but it wasn’t in her usual imperious tone, there was fear behind it. Jaskier could understand why.

He picked up his lute and played the chord progression he’d been working on. C, E7, G, D, E7, D, A minor. It was one of those rare songs where the notes came to him before the lyrics did. “I fall, fall, fall, Oh I fall, fall fall” he sang, and suddenly inspiration struck.

“I’m not the fool I seem to be,” he sang, “I know my fatal flaw. I’ve seen the very worst of me but I keep coming back for more.”

“I’d follow you as far as you’d let me go. I’d follow you as far as you’d let me go”

“With you I fall, fall, fall, Oh I fall, fall fall”

Yennefer lifted herself into a sitting position with some difficulty.

“You can have him,” she said bitterly.

Jaskier smiled sadly at her, “He doesn’t want me, he wants you. And besides, what if you finish your potion and you still have feelings for him afterwards?”

“We can share,” Yennefer shrugged, “I used to want to be the centre of someone’s world so badly, and now I can hardly wait to be rid of it.” She sighed. “How did you know about the djinn’s curse anyway?”

Jaskier snorted at that. “Do you really think Geralt had enough emotional awareness to realise what he’d done? I was complaining after the third or fourth time we ran into you and asked him if he’d tied you to him. He went all nervous quiet-”

“Which is different to regular quiet, of course,’ Yen chimed in.

“Of course,” Jaskier couldn’t hold back his chuckle. It still hurt, talking about his time with Geralt, but it was a lot less painful than it had been. Maybe it helped that Yennefer knew Geralt almost as well as he did. “And I figured it out from there.” He finished.

“You’re doing better,” Yen observed.

“Still hurts,” he admitted, not wanting to keep up the façade of being fine all the time.

“But is it lessened enough that you can turn it into art instead of suffering?” she asked, harkening back to their conversation several months ago.

“Maybe,” Jaskier replied, turning to his notebook, already humming A minor, F, C, G♭ minor, melancholy rising into wisdom. “Wish I’d remembered my lesson . . .”


	5. Beware the Lone Wolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can listen to my phone recording of this song here:
> 
> https://youtu.be/xfwh-g6B9Xc

Jaskier was frustrated. It was approaching a year since he had settled in Lindenvale, and somehow, it felt as though he had made no progress in his life in that time. There was nowhere for him to grow and it was beginning to show in his weary smile as he performed for the patrons of the tavern. He’d spent almost his entire adult life with a purpose, and while that purpose had ultimately broken his heart seemingly beyond all repair, it had been direction, a goal to pursue. No, all his goals were either too close (eat food for dinner) or too far (get over it all), nothing in that helpful middle zone that sparked drive and excitement. 

Perhaps that was why he had latched onto Yennefer and her potion so readily. She was kind enough not to call out how he seemed to simply have replaced one powerful being he followed around with another. That or, she knew that if she did say anything, she would lose his help, which had already proven to be speeding up the process. But Yen wasn’t Geralt, she wasn’t even really a replacement for Geralt. He wasn’t in love with her by any stretch of the imagination. Downright terrified of? Yes. Enamoured? Not so much. She was threatening and headstrong, running head first into her plans without consideration of the consequences, relying entirely on her magic to get herself out of the situations she managed to get herself into.

But she was also a lifeline to Geralt, a tie to the old life he hated and missed in equal measure. Which was how Jaskier had found himself with a potion brewing in his room above the tavern. Yen had moved in with Geralt and Ciri, and had decided that the potion was best left away from both of them. When Yen had stopped by to drop it off, it had been the first time she’d mentioned Geralt in the present tense, and Jaskier had opened and closed his mouth mutely as he’d tried to figure out what he could say.

Taking pity on him, Yen had interrupted his mute spluttering with what he had wanted to ask but hadn’t quite had the words for. She had smirked as she’d done it, though, so she clearly didn’t pity him that much.“I’m there to teach the princess how to control her powers, not for him. And he’s doing fine, in case you were wondering.”

Jaskier still wasn’t sure how he felt about that information. Geralt was fine. What did ‘fine’ mean? He believed that Yen wasn’t going there for Geralt, but they were tied together by magical destiny, there was every chance that, once she was there, the spark between them would reignite and Jaskier would be left to his own sadness in this tiny nowhere of a town, waiting for one or both of them to come need him. 

He’d asked about Ciri every time Yen had stopped by to check on the potion or to add an ingredient, he’d kept tabs on Geralt’s child surprise, after all. But he couldn’t bring himself to ask about Geralt, and his questions would hang thick in the air until Yen would mercifully answer them as if he’d asked.

A year. It had been a year, and Jaskier was no less heartbroken, as the songs in his notebook would confirm. He was no further into a future without Geralt. He was wondering if this tiny, unimportant town would be the place where his flame would fizzle out and die. Very possibly. The most productive thing he’d managed to do was collect a pile of the poems he’d written and send them off to Oxenfurt to be published. But he doubted the collection would do well, even when he tried to write of things that made him happy, like walks to the river and drinks with a friend, there was that tinge of melancholy that never seemed to quite go away.

And so, he did what he always did, tried to turn the emotions welled up inside him into songs until they had all run out, leaving him to experience something new. It was just that this well of heartbreak seemed to go quite a bit deeper than they usually did. He was playing another of his newer songs to himself, working on getting the chord transitions seamless with the plucked rhythm when the metallic scent of magic hit the air, the only warning he ever got before Yennefer portalled in. And yes, that had led to several awkward moments between them, or rather, it would have if Yennefer wasn’t always poised and dignified and if Jaskier had something resembling a sense of shame.

“Morning,” he said to her lazily, not bothering to move from his seat on the floor, there was too great a risk of him accidentally moving his notebook while the ink was still drying. Besides, he was expecting her to walk over to the corner of the room that contained her potion and leave again. What he was not expecting her to do, was sit on the floor in from of him, concern etched on her ridiculously beautiful face,

“Geralt is coming here,” she said.

“You-” Jaskier was ready to punch Yennefer at this, magic and all that be damned.

“I didn’t tell him you’re here. He’s coming to deal with the Leshen that’s been terrorising the farms a mile out of town. I just thought you might like a warning.”

“Right,” Jaskier said, standing up and beginning to stuff his things into a bag.

“What are you doing?” Yennefer demanded.

“Packing,” he replied, lute in hand.

“No,” she said, standing up beside him and placing an arm on his shoulder. “Don’t be an idiot, though I’m sure that’s going to be very hard for you.” She ordered. “You have a life here.”

Jaskier looked at her skeptically. “Sure, it’s a great life, guarding your potion and singing sad songs until my voice has gone hoarse and then I get to go to sleep and do the exact same thing tomorrow.” The sarcasm dripped from his words like venom.

“I know what happened: To the surprise of exactly no one, Geralt’s the one in the wrong, not you. So he shouldn’t get to make you run. He’s the one that should be running, from both of us.” She pointed out, and Jaskier let himself slump into her arm.

He felt like shit. Surely, an entire year later, the idea of seeing him shouldn’t have filled him with so much dread. “I’m going to need a drink,” he said, heading for the stairs, still holding his lute.

“My treat,” Yen said, moving in front of him so she could lead them both down the stairs.

In an act that demonstrated to Yennefer just how serious the situation was, Jaskier didn’t speak as he sipped his mead. He stared into the amber liquid like he might divine some way forward, anything to avoid actually having to make a decision himself. Maybe seeing Geralt would be fine, after all, he saw Geralt just about every time he dreamed, and about 10% of those dreams were pleasant. Who was he kidding? This was going to be a disaster and he was just sitting around, waiting to let it happen. No thank you.

Jaskier had put off so many things in his life, including a list of people longer than he was tall who he was supposed to call on after a previous ‘encounter’, claiming his place as his great-uncle’s heir, writing his memoirs. If he could avoid all that, then by the gods he could avoid this too.

Yennefer straightened suddenly, sending a spike of panic through Jaskier’s chest.

“He’s coming,” she told him. “Do you want me to stay?”

“Shit,” Jaskier had to bite down on the swell of emotion that threatened to run him over like an out-of-control carriage. He gripped the neck of his lute, just barely flicking the A string, so the note rang out, loud and clear across the bar. He searched his brain for a song to play, but only the worst possible songs he could think of came to mind. No, none of those would do, they were all either about Geralt and his deeds, or about Jaskier’s feelings afterwards. Well, best to pick the lesser of the two evils. He couldn’t have Geralt thinking everything was fine after what had happened in the mountains. 

“Do as you please,” he told Yennefer. He picked up his lute and moved to the centre of the room, drawing the eyes of the few other patrons to him. He ran through the chord progression in his mind, F, Dm, B♭, C, Am, Dm, B♭, C for the verses; B♭, Am, G, x2, F, Em, Am, x2 for the chorus. He’d only just started to get any sort of strumming pattern happening for it, having spent most of the time since he’d composed it trying to catch the delicate balance of yearning for the past but with the complicated question that was the future matching in both the music and the text. He heard the door open, this was it, if he didn’t start now then Geralt would be in the room with Ciri and Yennefer living the life that Jaskier so dearly missed, and he’d rather not hear it.

_ I’ve walked the road less travelled _

_ With twists of fate at every turn _

_ The road that tries to shake you off _

_ Good thing I never learn _

_ Pushed my way through thorns and bracken _

_ Found shelter in the wood _

_ Wish I’d remembered the lesson _

_ Beware the lone wolf _

Grateful that his song gave him something to focus on, Jaskier tried to lose himself to the music. It didn’t work because the second Geralt walked in a large part of Jaskier’s attention and heart lay with him. Even after all this time, Sweet Melitele, he was pathetic. He saw Geralt stiffen and look over towards his, but Jaskier averted his gaze, he wasn’t quite ready to see those eyes again.

_ Followed tracks that lead me nowhere _

_ Thought you’d just lost your way _

_ Should’ve known you’d hurt me _

_ But still I never learn _

_ When the water’s gone and the hunt is on _

_ I became your prey and not your friend _

_ Wish I’d remembered the lesson _

_ Beware the lone wolf _

Jaskier knew he was going to regret singing the bridge, it was far too . . . Well it was too something that was for sure. But Jaskier couldn’t stop now, that would make for a terrible performance. And he had always imagined that part as what he’d always wanted to say to Geralt should their paths cross again. Here goes nothing, he told himself.

_ And when you’ve taken your fill _

_ And sated your anger _

_ What remains of me? _

_ A corpse of dreams and memories _

_ Who misses you and hates you _

_ Who’s aches you caused  _

_ But only you can cure _

Jaskier could feel Geralt’s gaze on him as he sang. Cursing himself internally for his cowardice, Jaskier continued not to meet Geralt’s eyes. But since his attention always seemed to return to the witcher, Jaskier found himself staring at Geralt’s other features: His perfect jawline, his arms (which were hidden by armour but Jaskier had seen them enough times to know what they looked like), the way he stood - never completely relaxed, like he was always ready to strike. Gods curse him for still being so handsome.

_ You never had a pack _

_ I should’ve known you’d attack _

_ Wish I’d remembered my lesson _

_ Wish I’d remembered my lesson _

_ Will I ever learn my lesson? _

_ Beware the lone wolf _

_ Beware the lone wolf _

Jaskier took a minute to catch his breath after the extended final note, but when he realised Geralt was walking slowly over to him, he took a deep breath and began to sing again. Anything to prolong these few moments where he didn’t have to be reminded of how much Geralt hated him. He racked his brains for another song but the only one that came to him had barely been put to paper, it was little more than a chorus with sad poetry around it. But after all, wasn’t that all a song was to begin with. He plucked a C, followed by the chords E7, G, D, E7, D, Am. The notes that made up his lament.


	6. Lament

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can listen to Lament here (recorded on my phone, I know, I'm sorry):
> 
> https://youtu.be/ynB6cY2yvPc

The problem with Lament, as well as it’s many other problems such as being unpolished and barely scanning, was that it was much too honest. Jaskier had written down some of his thoughts and feelings as they had come to him in prose that was poetic enough to deserve being turned into music, and had only just gotten to the point of ordering them into something resembling a song. It wasn’t the kind of song he ever meant for public consumption, after all, who would want to parade an entire list of their flaws before an uncaring crowd. But Jaskier’s mind had turned on him in the panic of seeing Geralt and was only providing the worst possible songs for him to perform as a way of stretching out the moment before their inevitable conversation. 

_ I’m not the fool I seem to be _

_ I know my fatal flaw _

_ I’ve seen the very worst of me _

_ Yet I keep coming back for more _

_ I’d follow you as far as you’d let me _

_ I’d follow you as far as you’d let me go _

Wow, he thought to himself, great writing Jaskier, you’ve found a way to make yourself sound like even more of a kicked puppy.

_ But with you I fall, fall, fall _

_ I fall, fall, fall _

_ I fall, fall, fall _

_ Oh I fall, fall fall _

_ I’ve fancied myself in love _

_ Far to many times _

_ My broken heart is battered _

_ But still I have to try _

And it was true, Jaskier had always been the type to fall in love readily and easily. It was just so easy to place himself in a narrative where this person . . . Where she/he/they/ze (he wasn’t fussy) would fix everything, where he could really get to experience that love that conquered all. Of course, most of the time it all ended after a brief flirtation because the person wasn’t willing to drop everything just because Jaskier said he loved them, or because he and Geralt had needed to move on, or because their more serious partner had turned out and kicked Jaskier to the curb. But he had still loved them, and afterwards he would pick up his heart, duct if off, and try again. But it was difficult with Geralt, who wouldn’t mould to fit Jaskier’s romantic narrative, even when he did fall into romantic tropes, as he had with Yennefer, he had refused to box himself into them. He was Jaskier’s saviour, savee (on occasion), superpowered fighter, self-described monster, and a thousand other things. But he never stayed as just one for long, their story, if there was ever to be one would be so long and convoluted that only Valdo Marx would be stupid enough to try and turn it into a usable story.

_ There was safety in your solitude _

_ Until I broke through _

That was just it, though, Jaskier had never felt like he was anything more than a pretty face, kept around for as long as he could keep up the performance. Even the Countess de Stael, who had been his on again, off again lover so many times he’d lost count, always got rid of him once he became too comfortable, too much himself. But not Geralt, who had, for some bizarre reason, seemed to like him more, the less of an act he put on. Yes, parts of the mask and the melodrama were entirely him, they had to have come from somewhere. But Geralt didn’t expect it all the time, and he let Jaskier complain about things to his heart’s content. True, he often told Jaskier to shut up, but Jaskier had never felt the need to heed him because it was so different to how things normally went, where he was made to feel like he couldn’t voice his complaints without finding some way to stroke the ego 9or other parts) of the person he was complaining to.

_ And I fall, fall, fall _

_ Oh I fall, fall, fall _

_ I see you and I fall, fall, fall _

_ Oh I fall, fall, fall _

It was at this point in the song that Jaskier made the mistake of looking up. Geralt was maybe five paces away from him, three if he really decided to use those lovely legs of his. Nope, that wasn’t a helpful train of thought to be going down. Jaskier had to keep telling himself that he could deal with this. He’d had his heart broken many times before this, what was one more?

_ I still fall, fall, fall _

_ You’ll never catch my fall _

_ When I fall, fall, fall _

_ I break with my fall _

Of course, none of those times before had involved losing his best friend of over two decades and forced him to re-evaluate what he was doing with his life.

_ No way to put myself together _

_ With you I fall, fall, fall _

_ Oh I fall, fall, fall _

_ Without you I fall, fall, fall _

_ Oh I fall, fall, fall _

_ Guess all I do _

_ Is fall, fall, fall _

Well, that was it, there were no more words to add to the song, and even if there had been, Jaskier’s throat felt too tight to continue signing. He was tired. Gods, he was so tired of being sad. He wanted to be angry like Yen was, to scream at Geralt for the things he’d said. But he couldn’t. Not just because even if they weren’t fair or the truth, they were a message: Jaskier you’re a fuck up and I want you to go away. He’d heard that message enough times to recognise it when he heard it. It could be in the voices of his great-uncle, his parents, his teachers, the fellow student he’d thought were his friends. He was too much and it drove everyone away, even Geralt, who was every bit as annoying as he was (just in different ways).

He heard Geralt's footsteps as he approached, they were supposed to be stealthy, silent steps, but Jaskier knew the small sounds they made against wooden floorboards as well as he knew the sound of his own heartbeat.

“What do you want, Geralt?”

SIlence. Trust Geralt to have no response to the easiest question Jaskier could have asked. It was like the world was ordering silence at that made sense. The room after Lament, was a clear A minor, and although E7 was part of the song, it was a transitory chord, its G# having no place in the overall key. Geralt almost never spoke when things were outside the comfort of his E major scale.

Every few seconds, Geralt’s lips would move as if he was about to say something, and Jaskier would curse himself for noticing because it meant his eyes were fixed on Geralt’s distracting mouth, and Geralt would lapse back into silence.

“I’m sorry,” Geralt said at long last (Jaskier was pretty sure he could have composed another song in the time it took for Geralt to finally say something), and if Jaskier didn’t know any better he would have said the tone was tender. But he did know better, the words were just foreign to Geralt, that was all.

“You’re sorry?” Jaskier balked, and yeah, the anger was winning out: Why was it that Geralt got to just waltz back into his life? How was that fair by any standard of measurement? “Sorry for what? Getting to play at happy family with Yen and Ciri? For being so much better off without me? Save it for someone who wants to hear it.”

The tavern had gone silent, the patrons eager to eavesdrop on the conflict between witcher and bard. Yennefer was the only person in the room to be doing anything else, sipping her mead and rolling her eyes.

It was at that point that the door creaked open once more to reveal a young girl who Jaskier would have recognised even if he hadn’t just mentioned her.

He opened his mouth to greet her before stopping himself, remembering that Princess Cirilla of Cintra was definitely being hunted by the forces of Nilfgaard as they spoke. “Hello there, little one!” He said, greeting her brightly. 

“Jaskier!” She said, running into his outstretched arms.

“I’m glad you're safe,” he told her, firmly deciding that was as much as he was going to acknowledge Geralt in this conversation. “Yen tells me you’ve been learning some interesting trick, you’ll have to show them to me.”

“When did you talk to Yennefer?” Geralt asked. Jaskier ignored him, which was rather hard to do given that he looking at Ciri still had Geralt directly in his line of sight, and it was very hard not to be aware of the way he was standing there, brow furrowed as if someone had just handed him a puzzle and asked him to solve it.

Once Ciri realised Jaskier wasn’t going to answer Geralt, she took over, talking softly and quickly so that no one would overhear and understand. Jaskier did his best to pay attention and to act like he wasn’t deeply uncomfortable under Geralt’s scrutiny. He could have sworn Geralt had just mouthed the word ‘fall’ when his blood ran cold, realising what Geralt must have been realising. He shook himself, it didn't matter, if heartbreak hadn’t killed him in the mountains, then it wouldn’t do so here, though it could certainly twist the knife in the wound if it wanted to.

“You were in love with me.” It wasn’t a question. Geralt had figured it out.

“Yeah, you and half the continent, you aren’t special Geralt,” Jaskier shot back.

“I’m an idiot,” Geralt added, just for good measure. And yeah, he was, what possible reason could Geralt have thought up as to why Jaskier would follow him anywhere and everywhere. Jaskier was sure just about everyone else had noticed within the first five seconds of watching Jaskier’s behaviour anywhere near Geralt.

“Tell us something we don’t already know,” Yen chimed in, taking Ciri by the hand and guiding her back to the bar.

Geralt sighed and seemed to fortify his resolve, looking like he was about to go into battle, he spoke again: “Jaskier, I’m sorry for causing you pain both deliberately and not-”

“Leave it, Geralt,” Jaskier said, cutting him off because he knew that if Geralt kept talking Jaskier would go right back to kicked puppy-dom and follow him anywhere once again, and he wasn’t ready to do that just yet. No matter how much he missed their old life together. “I don’t want your pity, even if it is nice to hear you apologise, normally it’s like trying to get blood from a stone.

“Hmm,” Geralt replied eloquently, peering at Jaskier in a way that made him feel exposed and vulnerable. He had always hated when Geralt did this, looking at him with so much calculation when Jaskier knew he couldn’t do it back, not with how guarded Geralt was. Not that he didn’t try, stubbornly looking back into Geralt’s eyes. But they revealed as little as ever; if these were the windows to the soul, then the curtains were drawn.

“I might be unfamiliar with a lot of emotions, but I know I never pitied you,” Geral said, dealy seriously.

“That’s horseshit and you know it,” Jaskier replied, “You know plenty of emotions, remember anger? That was the one you threw at me in the mountains,” Jaskier sighed, he was more resigned than anything else, he was just so sick of melancholy. “Just go do your job, and leave again, I won’t follow you. Life will give you the blessing of being rid of me yet.”

Geralt turned to go, but not before speaking, so quietly that Jaskier almost didn’t hear it, and frankly, he wished he hadn’t. Geralt had always let Jaskier have the last word before now, it was easier that way, for Geralt to keep his stony silence and for Jaskier to have the final say, the both saw it as a victory. But not this time. This time, Geralt had to bring Jaskier’s world crashing down around him once again.

“It was never a blessing.”


	7. Lament (Reprise in Major)

Jaskier sat alone on his bed, plucking out some melody or another in A minor, but every now and then it would change into C major without him noticing, and he would have to start again. It was as if his hands hadn’t realised that this was a very minor key sort of situation: And nothing would be able to go back to normal until Geralt was gone and Jaskier could make a decent attempt at recovering from this ordeal. Gods, he hadn’t felt this kind of out-of-control anxiety since his early days at Oxenfurt, when he’d been at the mercy of teachers and the whims of his parents. That was before he’d figured out how to charm them, once he’d figured out how to get people to like him, things had gotten a lot easier. Except when people like Geralt were immune to it: They didn’t fall for the mixture of bravado and self-deprecation that left people with a good impression. 

He knew it had been several hours since Geralt had left to deal with the leshen. Jaskier had heard about it a few weeks ago, but he’d assumed it would eventually move on, it wasn’t like there was a lot for it to destroy around Lindenvale. But no, apparently, by some accursed coincidence, someone had told Geralt about it. He had half a mind to blame Yennefer, but he couldn’t make it a convincing story.

Either she would be well-meaning and trying to give Jaskier closure, which was very unlikely, even if they had some sort of unsteady friendship/alliance, or she was deliberately starting shit, which Jaskier could have believed had she not brought Ciri along. He’d listened to Yennefer go on for hours about Ciri, how badly Yen wanted her to have, well, a good life was off the table at this point, but a better one than her circumstances dictated. Yen wouldn’t bring Ciri along if she was trying to organise a fight.

There was a knock at Jaskier’s door, which immediately eliminated the possibility of Yen, who Jaskier was beginning to suspect had never knocked on a door a day in her life. It was too heavy-handed to be Ciri or any of the other much more pleasant alternatives. Really? Could he get no peace? 

“What now, Geralt?” he called to the door. He wasn’t going to get up from his comfortable position on the bed just to open the door and be reminded of all the ways in which he was a failure. The door swung open and there was Geralt. He was covered in a series of scratches, no doubt from crows summoned by the Leshen, and some of his sleeve was singed, probably from sustaining Igni for too long. But he wasn’t covered in monster guts or caked on filth of unknown origin, which had to be one of the advantages of fighting on hard earth rather than mushy swamps, even if it didn’t give Jaskier a convenient excuse to forbid Geralt from entering his room.

Geralt remained in the doorway, still looking at Jaskier like he was some kind of conundrum. Jaskier fought down his own urge to fill the silence, if Geralt wanted something to come of this confrontation, then he was going to have to do all the work. Jaskier was sick of trying to meet him in the middle and ending up crossing all the way over to the other side.

“Well?” Jaskier said, cursing himself for breaking the silence but also rather proud of himself for keeping it down to one word.

Geralt flattened his lips into a line, the way he did when his resolve was being tested. Jaskier thought that was kind of unfair, since he was the one actually being tested: Doing his best not to demand an answer from Geralt, to not ask him what he’d meant by ‘it was never a blessing’. It couldn’t have been that complicated, either Geralt wanted Jaskier around or he didn’t, so why was he still standing in the doorway doing nothing?

“We’re leaving soon,” Geralt said.

“Yeah? Well, have a lovely trip,” Jaskier said, thanking Melitele that he seemed to have gotten his wit back after the shock of seeing Geralt.

Geralt sighed, and Jaskier knew this one well, it was the sigh that meant, ‘you are deliberately misinterpreting what I am saying oh great and talented bard’, or at least, that was how Jaskier had always translated it in his head. “Come with us.”

Jaskier was not ready for that. How could Geralt just make such a simple request of him, ignoring the weight behind it? How could Jaskier really be considering saying yes? 

“I’m sorry, what?” Jaskier said, hoping that he’d invented that and Geralt had actually said something like “Get fucked” because at least jaskier could understand that, at least that made sense with the way Geralt had treated him last time they’d seen one another.

And Jaskier could almost see it, Geralt would roll his eyes, tell him to fuck off and Jaskier would be left very much in the same position as before. But that wasn’t what he did. Geralt stepped into the room with an earnest expression. 

“I’m sorry for what I said to you.” Geralt paused and it took all of Jasker’s rather limited supply of self-control not to reply. “I was angry at myself and looking for someone to blame.” Jaskier reached for the notebook beside him and began to write down the events that were transpiring around them, just in case his lovesick mind tried to convince him it had gone differently after Geralt had left and he was alone once again. He wrote everything down, word for word, and said nothing.

Geralt sighed again, “I’m sorry, Jaskier.”

“Is that a real apology?” Jaskier asked, keeping his eyes on his notebook. His hopes were already getting up too high, and he was trying to steel himself for when they inevitably came crashing down.

“Hmm,” Geralt replied, and gods damn it, Jaskier knew that one too, it was Geralt’s hum of confusion.

Years of practice at essentially having one-sided conversations between the two of them took over. “A real apology is a promise not to do something again, otherwise it’s just empty words. It means knowing you’ve done something wrong and going out of your way to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself” Jaskier explained.

Geralt exhaled loudly at this, and Jaskier looked up. His expression was still more openthat it usually was, and something was happening behind those golden eyes that Jaskier couldn’t quite make out.

“I promise,” Geralt said, “I won’t hurt you like that again. You didn’t deserve it and even if you did . . . It wouldn't have been right”

Oh Gods, there went his hopes, rising up into the sky like an overzealous bird taking flight. “Do you really understand what you’re saying, Geralt?” Jaskier asked, because he knew he was going to accept the apology. He’d known from the moment Geralt had uttered the words ‘it was never a blessing’, but he needed to know it wouldn’t happen again. He needed to be sure that this wasn’t going to turn around and bite him in the ass (at least, not in an unpleasant way) as soon as he got comfortable in Geralt’s life again.

“Hmm,” Geralt nodded along with the grunt that meant yes. Well, they were back at this point, or so it seemed. Where Geralt would do his monosyllabic grunts and curses while Jaskier filled in the blanks. If that was how it was going to be, then Jaskier was going to go right back to translating that ‘hmm’ to mean ‘yes Jaskier, you’re so wise and wonderful what would I ever do without you?’.

But carrying their conversations on his back was easy for him, almost as easy as it was for Geralt to carry him (and wasn’t that just a memory and a half). There was so much he wanted to know, even if he had heard of most of Geralt’s goings-on from Yennefer, there were pressing questions even she couldn’t answer, or at the very least, ones Jaskier was too afraid to ask her.

“Try to go easy on me, yeah?” Jaskier said, starting with the most pressing issue first, “Now that my stupid crush on you is all out in the open. Do try not to let things get too awkward.” Yes, that was good, just the right amount of disinterest, as if Jaskier were remarking on something as mundane as the weather and not the fact that he had been utterly enamoured of the man before him for his entire adult life.

“Things will only change as much as you want then to,” Geralt said, abd Jaskier was so busy enjoying the deep timbre of his voice that it took his mind a good moment to properly process exactly what Geralt had said.

‘Things will only change as much as you want them to’ Geralt had to know how that sounded, didn’t he? Jaskier searched Geralt’s face for the telltale signs of a joke, the slight turn in one corner of his mouth, or the way he would raise one eyebrow higher than the other ever so slightly. But nothing. As far as Jaskier could tell (and he could tell a great deal more from Geralt’s face than most people), Geralt was in earnest.

“Do you mean what I think you mean?” Jaskier said, because it never hurt to double check these sorts of things.

And naturally, Geralt, instead of saying something lovely and poetic that Jaskier could write down and turn into what would have to be the greatest song the world had ever seen, just gave Jaskier a hum of affirmation. The bastard, robbing Jaskier of such a moment. Of course, as this sunk in, Jaskier realised a great many things.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he began, it was a rather good beginning if he did say so himself. “All those years? Forget hints, Geralt, I dropped entire lead weights on you hoping you you figure it the fuck out. I gave you so many openings. Do you not recall the bath before Cintra? Because I certainly recall the bath before Cintra. Or how about the time with the Endrega? Because you were quite literally carrying me bridal style through a forest.” Jaskier was on a roll at this point. “Gods! I left you so many opportunities to bloody do something! And don’t tell me you had no idea, because I know I am a great many things but subtle is not one of them. I mean, how many times have I responded with ‘make me’ after you’ve told me to shut up? Hmm?” Jaskier pointed out. 

He’d spent so many years of his life giving Geralt the chance to either respond in some kind of positive way to Jaskier’s flirting or to ignore it so things wouldn’t become awkward between them. Because that was what you did when you wanted a person but didn’t want to make them responsible for your feelings, you gave them an out; a way to misinterpret the signals so they wouldn’t feel put-upon. Jaskier was just about to say something along these lines when Geralt moved towards him in one swift motion and pressed Jaskier’s lips to his own.

Wow. Geralt really was just full of surprises today, wasn’t he? Once Jaskier managed to recover from both his stunned shock and his feeling of ‘fucking finally’, he was able to let himself melt into Geralt’s embrace, kissing him back with the kind of desperation usually reserved for the first gasps of breath taken by those who have nearly drowned. Geralt hummed his low E into Jaskier’s mouth, his teeth just barely scraping Jaskier’s bottom lip, a silent plea for entry which Jaskier granted without hesitation. Every note in Jaskier’s head played in triumph, desperately trying to order themselves into some sort of melody, the song of the two of them together.


	8. Surrender in B Minor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the smut chapter, feel free to skip it

He should have known Geralt’s pleasure would be E major like everything else about him, blending perfectly into Jaskier’s B minor. Perhaps there was something unusual about his pleasure being in a minor key, but B minor was perhaps the least ‘minor’ of the minor keys, it was the key of giving in, to emotions, to the wondrous feeling of Geralt’s skin on his. It was the key of divinity and sacred rituals, and whether you believed in them or not, this was one time when the Gods were invoked more than any other. The chord between them fell perfectly E, G#, B, D, F#, Geralt’s E7 but with one extra note, that F#, a note of clarity, the first note to rise to a sharp in any key with sharps, the note that took their exchange beyond an octave, contributing something that was entirely Jaskier.

Geralt pulled their lips apart, just for a moment, sweeping his eyes up to meet Jaskier’s, before burying his face against Jaskier’s neck. He was so careful, pressing tender kisses against Jaskier’s throat, gently pushing his jacket and chemise out of the way.

“You aren’t going to break me, you know,” Jaskier said, and he had meant to sound rather cocky as he spoke, but the hoarseness in his words spoke volumes about the reality.

“I could,” Geralt said, sucking just a little harder to prove his point.

“But you won't,” Jaskier said with absolute confidence, “and even if you did, what a splendid way to go that would be.” He smiled to himself as he felt Geralt’s teeth scrape his skin. “Mm yes,” he encouraged, “just like tha-” his words were cut off by the feeling of Geralt biting down where his neck met his shoulder, if only for a moment. “Gods Geralt! As lovely as this is, there is a perfectly serviceable bed behind me and we are both wearing far too much clothing.”

“Are you always this talkative in bed or am I just lucky?”

“Technically, we aren’t in bed yet, and you haven’t given me anything better to do with my mouth,” Jaskier challenged, dropping another of his many hints, hoping this one lacked enough subtlety to be noticed by the particularly oblivious witcher.

“Hmm,” was all Jaskier got in response. It wasn’t one of the many grunts and hums Jaskier had heard before, but he could gleam it’s meaning: A degree of frustration, some temptation, and just a hint of impatience. Of course, even if Jaskier hadn’t been able to figure it out, the fact that Geralt was all but ripping his own clothes off would have been a dead giveaway.

It took every part of Jaskier’s self control to follow suit, he kept getting distracted by the sight of Geralt’s arms, thigh, and sweet Melitele that cock! True, Jaskier had seen it many times before, but that had been under circumstances far less ideal than the moment at hand.

“Bed,” Geralt growled, “Now.”

Jaskier was certain he’d never once complied with an order so quickly before, from Geralt or anyone else. Then again, maybe those previous orders would have had more success if they’d been ordering him to comply with a fantasy he’d had for nearly his entire adult life. But this was perfect ecstasy in B minor, the key of surrender. He was sure he’d have done anything Geralt asked of him as long as it meant the two of them ending up on that bed. Anything to keep that feeling of giving in to something he’d wanted for so very long.

Geralt followed soon after, climbing over Jaskier with a predatory glint in his eyes that shouldn’t have sent sparks directly to Jaskier’s cock, but gods, did it. In the past, Jaskier had always been so careful when touching Geralt, knowing that his witcher-senses would detect a change in his heartbeat or breathing. But the secret was out now, and Jaskier could run his hands along Geralt’s forearms and up his neck, reaching up to cup his face and pull him in for a slow, languid kiss. One that went on long enough for Jaskier to reach around the vial that lived (perhaps a tad optimistically) on his headboard.

He pulled away from Geralt and handed the bottle over. Geralt looked at it like it was another puzzle, fortunately one that he was able to solve a lot more quickly that the last one Jaskier had presented him with.

“You’re sure?” Geralt asked, his deep voice reverberating in the small space between them.

“No, Geralt, I just handed that to you for shits and giggles, of course I’m bloody sure. I’ve had twenty five years to make sure,” Jaskier sassed back. 

“Hmm,” Geralt hummed, leaning forwards once more to press lovebites into the column of Jaskier’s neck. Any suspicions Jaskier may have had about Geralt doing this to distract him from what he had just asked for, disappeared as soon as he felt Geralt’s hand wrap around his cock.

“Fuck!” He cried out.

Geralt just hummed into Jaskier’s neck as a response. Oh gods, he could barely think, each note in his head was rising in a superb crescendo, so loud that it drowned out anything resembling reason. He only just heard the faint pop of the cork coming from the vial he’d given Geralt, a solution made by boiling carrageenan seaweed, one of many reasons he adored waterside townships. He didn’t register what it meant until he felt a slick finger circling gently around his entrance.

Geralt continued to kiss lower and lower down Jaskier’s torso, with Jaskier’s hand buried in his silver hair. He pulled hard when Geralt swirled his tongue around a nipple, pulling a cry from Jaskier’s throat.

Geralt chose that moment to press his finger inside, waiting until the flutter in Jaskier’s heartbeat had evened out before moving. Carefully thrusting his finger in and out of Jaskier’s hole.

“More,” Jaskier demanded of him breathlessly.

And Jaskier could see the retort melt out of Geralt’s thoughts as he looked Jaskier over. Jaskier blushed a little as he thought about what it was that Geralt was seeing, his body splayed out and so utterly desperate for him. Geralt narrowed his eyes in focus as he added a second finger, making Jaskier gasp.

And suddenly, their chord E, G#, B, D, F# drowned out every other thought in Jaskier’s mind and he saw stars. “Do that again,” he breathed, moaning loudly as Geralt did so, with the addition of a third finger. Jaskier’s breathing sped up and he tried to pull himself together by screwing his eyes shut. “Need you. Inside me. Now.” He managed to say between laboured breaths.

“Hmm.” Jaskier had a new favourite of Geralt’s hums, although he was definitely going to give Geralt shit for communicating in grunts at a time like this, but that was a problem for future Jaskier to deal with. 

Deciding that Geralt was taking too long, Jaskier leant up and snatched the bottle he’d given Geralt earlier, pouring a generous amount of the liquid inside onto his palm and wrapping his hand around Geralt’s cock. He smiled rather smugly as he saw Geralt close his eyes and take a deep breath to compose himself. He slowed his pace, but deftly slid his thumb over the slit with each pump, earning a growl of appreciation deep in Geralt’s chest and oh, he could get used to this.

He felt Geralt’s fingers ease up inside of him, only just having the sense to stop himself from exclaiming ‘finally!’ as he let go of Geralt and watched as he lined himself up between Jaskier’s legs. And wasn’t that just a sight: Jaskier knew the source and location of every scar of Geralt’s body, though he only made songs out of the particularly marketable ones; he knew every dip of skin and muscle from years of looking while hoping it wasn’t too obvious that he was looking; he knew what the white wolf looked like slaying beasts; but nothing had prepared Jaskier for the sight of Geralt leaning over him with desire shining in his eyes.

And when Geralt pushed in, that image was burned into Jaskier’s mind forever. He wrapped his legs automatically around Geralt’s hips as if that would somehow stop an incredibly strong witcher from pulling away. Geralt placed one strong hand around his thigh, tilting him and an angle that seemed to make every one of Jsakier’s nerves hum in chorus. And then, thank Melitele in all her forms, he began to move. 

Geralt’s favourite song by Jaskier was not Toss a Coin or any of the other songs the bard had written for him, but the songs that Jaskier sang in that bed above the tavern, though these were not songs anyone could sing in public. He increased his pace, wrapping a hand around Jaskier’s leaking cock, and began to thrust in earnest, breaking off Jaskier’s cries until they were little more than breathy moans and soft pleas.

“Geralt! Please!” Jaskier said, only to be silenced with a kiss until he was moaning into Geralt’s mouth as his pleasure reached it’s peak and he spilled between them. The way Jaskier thrashed and rolled his hips as he came making Geralt follow him shortly after.

They lay on Jaskier’s bed for several moments before Jaskier reached under the bed and grabbed a rag to clean themselves with. This had to be the quietest Geralt had ever seen jaskier, and if this was what it took to get him there, then Geralt would be more than happy to use that method to quieten him again.

“I’m going to ask you a question and you aren’t going to like it,” Geralt told Jaskier after they were both wiped, not clean, but at least no longer obviously gross.

“I’m pretty sure you could ask me just about anything right now, and I’d still feel wonderful.” Jaskier met Geralt’s eyes with a lazy smile.

Geralt gave his amused grunt, “Alright then,” he shifted his position so he could look at Jaskier’s entire face. “When did you and Yennefer start spending time together?”

“Why? Are you jealous?” Jaskier asked, his sharp wit returning to him.

“Which of you would I be jealous of?” Geralt asked.

“Good question.” Jaskier grinned, “I’ll tell you with her on the road.”

A more verbose person would have exclaimed “you’re coming with us!” and Ciri would, in fact, say something along those lines the very next morning, but Geralt just smiled, exhaling loudly into the silence that followed Jaskier’s words, and reached an arm to pull him closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The seaweed lube thing is actually historically accurate, it was used in East Asia and Celtic Nations for thousands of years, and being water based, is a lot better suited to human use than oil. Source: http://www.ryandrum.com/seaweeds.htm


End file.
